Son of the Mob Read Free

on him to hold him still, while my mother digs at him with a tweezers.
    â€œAha!” she exclaims, coming up with a tiny misshapen object covered in gore.
    Uncle Carmine screams bloody murder.
    â€œShut up, Carmine!” orders my father. “If you wake the kids, the next one’s going in your head.”
    They tell me it’s a kidney stone, but I’m not fooled.
    My teacher, Mrs. Metzger, confirms my suspicion that kidney stones don’t come out of your butt cheek.
    The peculiarities begin to mount up. The sudden “school camping trip” where none of the other kids are from my class. And where one day, I open my Cracker Jacks at snack time and find a box full of cut diamonds. Everybody else has a ball while I sit in the cabin, guarding my cache of “snacks,” afraid to open anything else. I have to be evaluated by a psychologist after that, because I’m so obsessed with my food.
    When I get back to my own school, none of the kids in my class have gone on any camping trip. They think I’ve been out with strep throat.
    Dad says special cleaners were working in our house while I was away, so he had to get rid of the Cracker Jacks because it’s so messy. Those guys must have been pretty lousy cleaners, because they cut open every teddy bear in my closet.
    Stuff like that.
    By this point, Tommy has already told me, “Dad’s mobbed up.” But back then I assumed it just meant he had a lot of friends.
    He’s such a fun father. While all the uncles ignore their kids, Dad always finds time for Tommy and me, and our older sister, Mira. He teases us, and cracks great jokes, and we always get tons of presents. There are these fun little rituals, too. Every night before he shuts out the lights in the den, he’ll look up and address the fixture: “And a special good night to you, Agent Numb-Nuts.” Or he’ll call into the garage, “We’re going out to dinner if it’s all right with you, Agent Needledink. Should I bring you a doggie bag?”
    As a kid, I thought it was a riot. It’s only now, years later, that I realize Dad’s talking to real people. FBI agents, to be specific. Our house was—and still is—always bugged.
    I’ll never forget the day it sank in that people are out there listening. Every burp, every trip to the can, and worse—all preserved on tape by federal agents. Home sweet home.
    At least now I understand why Dad flips his lid the day I accidentally open up that suitcase full of bearer bonds.
    â€œWhat’s this, Dad? It looks like some kind of money.”
    The father who never so much as smacked my behind clamps a death grip on my mouth with the strength of the jaws of a great white shark.
    â€œIt’s play money, Vince. Like Monopoly.”
    Uncle Cosimo, who’s in charge of the suitcase, cuts our lawn for the next three summers.
    Think what a terrible burden it is for a high-school kid: if you say the wrong thing in the privacy of your own home, you might end up sending your father to prison.
    One day I corner Mom in the laundry room, where the roar of the washer covers our conversation. “I know what Dad does for a living.”
    She nods. “He’s an excellent provider. Thank God, vending machines are a profitable business.”
    â€œOh, Mom,” I complain. “Don’t treat me like an idiot. I know he’s in the Mob.”
    She stares at me, shocked. “What on earth are you talking about?”
    â€œCome on, Mom. I know you know!”
    I’ve got to give her credit. She never retreats an inch. Either that or my poor mother is so dumb that, ten years ago, she really did believe that Uncle Carmine passed a kidney stone through a bloody hole in his left buttock. It’s a mean thing to say about your mom, but I have to consider heredity. There must be an explanation for Tommy, after all. And Mira majored in media studies, not astrophysics, in community